Job insecurity, job satisfaction, work wellness and organisational commitment in a petroleum/oil company

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The primary objectives of this study were to investigate the relationship between job insecurity, job satisfaction, work wellness, and organisational commitment of employees (N = 66) at a petroleum / oil company. A cross-sectional survey design was used. Constructs were measured by means of the Job Insecurity Survey Inventory (JISI), the Minnesota Job Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ), the Oldenburg Burnout
Inventory (OLBI), the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES), the General Health
Questionnaire (GHQ), and the Organisational Commitment Questionnaire (OCQ).
For many employees, the changes in working life we have witnessed over the past two decades have caused feelings of insecurity concerning the nature and future existence of their jobs (Hartley, Jacobson, Klandermans, & van Vuuren, 1991). Job insecurity is not only problematic for the individual employees, but also for the company in which they work. Greenhalgh and Rosenblatt (1984) found that the impact of job insecurity on individual employees could erode the effectiveness of the organisation. A downward spiral is created, where productivity decreases, and in such a manner that the competitive strength of the company is undermined. The risk of further redundancies is increased, which in turn increases feelings of job insecurity. The impact of job insecurity as noted above, inter alia, lowered job satisfaction, lowered trust in management, lowered organisational commitment, produced a greater tendency to leave the organisation, caused an increase in psychosomatic complaints and depression, and ultimately spreads into negative consequences for the organisation. It is for these reasons that the researchers felt the need to conduct research on job insecurity. All scales used in this research demonstrated adequate internal consistencies. Job insecurity and job satisfaction were not found to be correlated as there was no negative correlation found between job insecurity and intrinsic job satisfaction. Affective job insecurity demonstrated a practically significant positive correlation of medium effect with intrinsic job satisfaction. This therefore suggested that the higher the levels of affective job insecurity, the higher the levels of intrinsic job satisfaction. These findings are contrary to literature, which suggests that job insecurity has been associated with lowered job satisfaction (Probst & Baker, 2001). Both job insecurity subscales, cognitive and affective job insecurity, demonstrated a practically significant positive correlation of medium effect with both of the OLBI subscales, implying that increased levels of both job insecurity subscales are associated with increased levels of burnout as measured by the OLBI. Job insecurity (particularly affective job insecurity) was found to be positively associated with the anxiety and insomnia subscale as measured by the GHQ, which suggested that the higher the levels of job insecurity, the higher the levels of anxiety and insomnia experienced by the participants.
Participants with increased levels of tenure (more than 5 years) presented with higher levels of social dysfunction than participants who had been working in the organisation for less than five years. Employees with tertiary qualifications, as well as employees younger than 35 years, displayed lower levels of continuance commitment compared to employees without tertiary qualifications and were older than 35 years. White employees presented with higher levels of anxiety and insomnia, as well as higher levels of social dysfunction compared to participants falling within the Blacklother categories.